Du Page County Parents Also Face Peer Pressure

May 20, 1992|By Ted Gregory.

Glenbard South High School junior Amy Weigel was waiting in the school parking lot to pick up a friend after classes. The 16-year-old was behind the wheel of a red-and-black 1989 Chevy Blazer that her parents had given her

``just because.``

A few miles away, Martha Seidler of West Chicago gave her two sons-one 5, the other, 3-their weekly allowance of one dollar each, but only if they`d behaved. Seidler said she encourages them to save and hopes the allowance, which she and her husband started doling out last year, will help the children understand the value of money.

That hope is part of a larger question troubling many in comfortable, affluent Du Page County: Do things come too easily to children today?

In a wide-ranging Tribune poll of residents throughout Du Page, nearly 70 percent of parents said they are expected to give more time, attention, material goods and financial support to their children than the parents of a generation ago.

``Oh yeah, definitely,`` said Weigel, of Glen Ellyn, when asked whether her parents have given her more than they received from their parents. ``My parents didn`t get a car until they were married. It was their wedding present.``

``I think kids expect more nowadays,`` Weigel said, adding that peer pressure involving material things can be intense in Du Page. ``I think it starts with one person, and when other people see what that person gets, it goes from there, or the parents want to give their children what they never had.``

Amy`s parents gave her the car, her mother said, in part because it is an expectation in Du Page County.

``Things are a lot different now than they were 36 years ago,`` said Muriel Weigel. ``For one thing, most of her friends do have cars. . . . Also when I was growing up, things were much closer in proximity and there was public transportation. Out here things are so spread out.``

Seidler, 31, a full-time homemaker, said there are more material goods to tempt kids than 20 or 30 years ago. And glossy images on television just reinforce the culture`s drive to consume, she said.

In addition, economic pressures on parents have intensified, often forcing both to work outside the home. That has caused many to compensate for the lost time with their children by spending more money on them, Seidler and others said.

But money isn`t the answer to some parents. In order to spend more time with their children, Seidler and her husband, Andrew, made a tough decision in November. She left her job at a day care center in Winfield-and about $9,000 a year of income-to stay home with her sons Davin, 5, and Sean, 3.

``Personally, I felt like I was neglecting my kids because I wasn`t around when they wanted me to be around,`` Seidler said, adding that she empathizes with those parents who are working outside the home.

Now, she`s settling into a more traditional lifestyle that she recalled from her childhood, but there have been snags. Dinner, for example.

When she was a child, Seidler, her three sisters and their parents sat down together to dinner every night. These days, Seidler, her two sons and husband gather for dinner only twice a week-on Saturday and Sunday.

That`s because Seidler`s husband can`t make it home from work until 8:30 or 9 p.m., she said, so mother and sons eat their weeknight meals without him. Only 38 percent of residents surveyed in the Tribune poll said their families sit down for dinner every night of the week. The percentages were slightly higher for those families with children in elementary school and those with annual incomes of less than $35,000.

Pam Cletcher of Downers Grove was among those respondents who said parents today are expected to give more to their children than parents were a generation earlier.

``We`ve all gotten caught in a money trap, and it`s hard,`` she said, echoing the sentiment that many parents feel guilty about missing time with their children because of work schedules.

Donna Matteson, 35, a Naperville homemaker, said it was almost instinctive to get a job in high school when she was growing up on Chicago`s South Side.

``When we were 15 and a half, we started looking for a job and we never even thought about it,`` she recalled. ``You just had this understanding that that was the way things were.``

Today, things are a bit different, she said.

``I think kids go out and get jobs today, but I don`t think it`s the same commitment,`` she said, although she added it depends largely on the values of individual parents.

``It seems to me that there are so many part-time jobs out there that if a kid doesn`t like one, or gets fired, it`s no big deal,`` she said. ``He can just move on to the next one or the one after that.``

Dr. Benjamin Kietzman, an eye physician who with his wife, Sylvia, has raised four children, said modern life has become too soft. Children are taught that ``everything is supposed to fall into place and everything is supposed to go over easy,`` he said.